Bush junta will not sign Law of Sea Treaty, but, they claims US shipsin Strait of Hormuz are in "int

At Asia Times, Kaveh L Afrasiabi writes:

Legal mist stokes US-Iran tensions in strait

Tension spiked markedly last week when Iranian Revolutionary Guards

Corps (IRGC) speedboats were involved in an "incident" with three US

Navy vessels, which claimed they were international waters.

Yet there is no "international water" in the Strait of Hormuz,

straddled between the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. The US

government claimed, through a Pentagon spokesperson, Bryan Whitman,

that the three US ships "transiting through the Strait of Hormuz" were

provocatively harassed by the speedboats. This was followed by the

Pentagon's release of a videotape of the encounter, where in response

to Iran's request for ship identification, we hear a dispatch from one

of the US ships stating the ship's number and adding that "we are in

international waters and we intend no harm".

Thus there is the issue of the exact whereabouts of the US ships at

the time of the standoff with the Iranian boats manned by the IRGC

patrolling the area. According to Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgiff, the US

ships were "five kilometers outside Iranian territorial waters". Yet,

this is disputed by another dispatch from the US ships that states, "I

am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law."

Given that the approximately three-kilometer-wide inbound traffic lane

in the Strait of Hormuz is within Iran's territorial water, the US

Navy's invocation of "transit passage" harking back to the 1982 UN

Convention on the Law of the Sea, (UNCLOS) is hardly surprising. ...

Although the US has yet to ratify the UNCLOS, it has been a strong

advocate of its provisions regarding navigational rights, thus

explaining the US officers' availing themselves of "international

law". ...

Article 19, elaborating on the meaning of "innocent passage", states

that "passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the

peace, good order or security of the coastal state". And that means a

prohibition on "any exercise or practice with weapons of any kind" and

or "any act of harmful and serious pollution".

In other words, US warships transiting through Hormuz must, in effect,

act as non-war ships, "temporarily depriving themselves of their armed

might". And any "warning shots" fired by US ships at Iranian boats,

inspecting the US ships under customary international laws, must be

considered an infringement on Iran's rights. This technically warrants

a legal backlash in the form of the Iranians temporary suspending the

US warships' right of passage. Again, the US could be technically

prosecuted by Iran in international forums for conducting questionable

activities while in Iranian territorial waters.